This is a blog detailing the creation/evolution/ID controversy and assorted palaeontological news. I will post news here with running commentary.

Monday, May 04, 2015

Is Science Class the Best Place to Expose Creationism?

In a follow-up editorial to the goings on involving Arroyo Grande Technical School's Brandon Pettenger and his attempts to inject at least some degree of young earth creationism into the science curriculum, Joe Tarica opines that, perhaps, science class is the best place to bring up young earth creationism:

We can examine the bones of dinosaurs and early human ancestors to prove the two never walked the Earth together, despite what the Creation Museum claims.

We could explore just why it would be obviously impossible for Noah to get two of every creature into an ark to avoid the great flood. He was in the Middle East, for crying out loud. How would he get his hands on polar bears, penguins and all the many other species of animals that live in unique habitats half a world away?

We can study astronomy, light and matter to understand the formation of the universe, which most certainly did not occur a mere 6,000 years ago.

A huge assumption is being made here: that the science teachers that bring up creationism will actually honestly address the science. As we have seen in a number of instances all over the country, not all science teachers do this. In fact, the reason this ruckus started in the first place is that there is evidence that Pettenger didn't. if Pettenger favorably brought up a blog like Answers in Genesis (none of the stories mention which blogs he asked his students to summarize) then the train has already left the tracks. Further, he wouldn't be alone.

A poll that was done some years back revealed that 29% of special science teachers in England who were polled approved of the teaching of creationism alongside evolution. A similar poll done in the United States, in 2011, showed that 13% of high school biology teachers who responded “explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light” and that only 28% of high school biology teachers actually followed NRC guidelines on teaching of evolution because it is so controversial. If you opened the door to the examination of creationism in science class, how would you control for these things? I think it would be very hard to do so.